By Lucy Mwangi
- A Twitter account purported to belong to Meru Senator Mithika Linturi is fake. It had shared live videos of Linturi of his tours in different counties. The imposter account, which has 2,354 followers, posted its first post on June 9, 2020 and was created the same month. It uses images of the senator on its profile picture and cover. The legislator’s official Twitter account was created in August 2013, and has 25.5k followers.
- Rumours circulated on social media that China had launched an “artificial sun” were false. The rumours about the launch of the artificial sun began to circulate on Monday, January 10, 2022, when a series of images and videos surfaced of what appears to be a ball of light and gas is shot into the sky. The Media Observer team discovered a clip that does not show an artificial sun being launched, but rather a rocket launch filmed in Longlou, Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, China. A report provided by the Chinese government also shows images of the launch of the Long March-7A rocket, which was designed to place two satellites in space on December 23.
3. A job ad on a Kenya Wildlife Service letterhead is fake. The advertisement features the government parastatal announcing entry-level job opportunities for 2022. The advertisement requests interested candidates to send their CVs, application letters, and a copy of their ID to kwsrecruitments@gmail.com and forwarded to www.kwsapplications.co.org. However, there is no information regarding employment openings in the KWS website’s careers section or on its social media platforms. A government agency can’t have an official Gmail account. On January 9, 2022, KWS issued a public notice identifying the jobs post as fake and asking the public to learn to verify any information they read on social media.
4. A tweet claiming that Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka had withdrawn his presidential bid was fake. According to tweet shared on January 11, Kalonzo had dropped his bid and is ready to join the Azimio la Umoja. The claim came after governors Kivutha Kibwana (Makueni), Charity Ngilu (Kitui) and Alfred Mutua (Machakos) castigated Kalonzo over his grip on Ukambani’s backyard. A review of the former vice president’s social media platforms yielded no information on the supposed withdrawal. Kalonzo Musyoka’s aide Dennis Kavisu dismissed the reports, telling The Media Observer that the news was false.
5. A social media poster allegedly from the Kenya Power stating that there is a compensation process for the recent power outage was fake. The poster dated January 10 appears to be an apology letter from the KPLC Customer Service Department for the eight-hour outage that occurred on January 11. The power outage that affected most parts of the country was caused by collapsing towers on the Kiambere-Embakasi high voltage transmission line. KPLC on January 12 in a tweet dismissed the poster as false.
6. A tweet by TV47 claiming that farmers have begun supplying sugar cane to Mumias Sugar Company was misleading. According to a report presented by anchor Erick Maina during primetime news on January 13, the sugar company resumed operations following restructuring, with farmers being able to sell their sugarcane to the company. A look through the timeline of TV47’s Twitter account revealed that they had removed the post. The Media Observer contacted Mumias Sugar Co Ltd on January 14, 2022 and they refuted the claims, saying the farmers had not yet begun selling sugar cane to the giant sugar corporation.
